


For All Who Fell

by calmlikesurrender



Category: One Direction (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Death, Future, M/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-01-08
Updated: 2013-12-06
Packaged: 2017-11-24 03:35:54
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 8,435
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/629931
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/calmlikesurrender/pseuds/calmlikesurrender
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The year's 2167. Zayn and Liam are married. They live in New York with their son and daughter. Niall's a teacher. Louis' the president. Harry's going to bring the world to its knees.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Part One

 

            After the first bombing, there are whispers.

            The sort of talk that usually supersedes a rush in sales of water and batteries and first aid kits at the market. Also, coincidentally, the sort of talk that Zayn is prone to promptly avoid like the plague.

            He has better things to worry about, he reasons, than a few wild claims that the world is coming to an end. That one suicide bomber in Manhattan beckons the “dawn of humanity’s surrender”.

            Not his words. It’s literally what’s screaming across the front page of the Times he skims on his way to the office. “Humanity’s surrender”. He takes a long moment, pausing at the corner for a red light, to wonder if he’s quite literally the only sane person left on the planet. Then he presses the crosswalk button again and stares out at the traffic inching along fifth and wonders further, crossly between musing and irritated, why it’s nearly 2168 and they still haven’t invented hover cars so he never has to wait on the street corner again.

            Below the article is a shrewd sketch of a man in camo, gaunt face visibly aged and determined. Across his chest are three thick leather straps. Even with the rather crude drawing, Zayn can see where white letters are etched into a shoulder patch on his jacket- FA.

            Even though he’d been trying his damndest to avoid media on the bombing, it was nearly impossible to miss people speaking about the man’s last words. His loud, obviously proud, proclamations in the school yard.

            “For all,” he’d shouted, unbuttoning his jacket slowly as witnesses had detailed, “For all!” again and again, “We stand for all” until people had started to think he was just a crazed homeless man, wondering about, muttering nonsense like they tended to do.

            Then, “We stand for all who fell!” again but with something like reverence, tears in his eyes. And, with a final salute to the sky, the people around him, the children staring on curiously, parents rushing for their hands, “Be at peace, my brothers and sisters.”

            He’d ended his life in a neat halo of rusty dust. Taking twenty-seven others with him. Mostly children whose parents hadn’t hurried them off in time. A dozen injured.

            Though he was hardly ready to rush them off to stock up on provisions for the apocalypse, Liam _had_ been clearly shaken.

            He’d phoned Zayn in his office, breathless, shouting at him to turn on the news.

            _Suicide bomber at a local school._

_Terrorist plot levels a block. Fifty rumored dead._

Zayn switched the channel, but it seemed to be on every one. Each news caster speaking in the same level, emotionless voice that could have easily been a weather forecast not countless lives coming to an end.

Then, with his eyes glued to the screen, a lump forming thick in his throat, _Authorities ask that you be certain of your children’s whereabouts until-_

And it’s like the carpet, the literal ground beneath his feet, soars up and slams into him. He falls to his knees, clutching at the phone to his ear so tight he’s surprised it doesn’t shatter in his grip.

“Liam?” his voice is a hollow shell, a muttering whimper. Pleading. “Liam? Are they- Are they okay? Millie and James?”

And just saying their names, just for a moment imagining them lying across the pavement in a pool of blood, sends his lunch right up. He doesn't even make it to the bin, hurling right there. He wipes at his mouth with the back of his hand and nearly hurls again, dry heaving roughly, when Liam pauses.

“Zayn, baby,” he says, a question in his voice, “It’s Saturday...” As if it means everything in the world. He wants to scream.

Until the room stops spinning and he blinks past tears he didn't even know were there. Saturday. It’s honestly the most beautiful word he’s ever heard. Why has he never noticed that before? How perfect it sounds. Saturday. No public school.

And as if on cue he hears a small voice in the background on the phone. Millie’s bright slurred dips and Zayn all but collapses. Settles for succumbing to a shivering mess on the floor for a moment, eyes closed, tears threatening to spill when he hears her insistent prodding- “But Daddy who are you talking to? Can I talk, please? Can I?”

He smiles, wishing for all the world that he wasn’t so far away. That he was there too. That he hadn’t promised to come in early today to help out with the new ad.

“It’s Baba,” he hears Liam say away from the phone and Millie’s voice comes again then, louder.

She begs again, this time Liam must consent because Zayn can hear her breathing on the other line. He just listens for a moment. When she squeaks out a “Hey, Baba,” into the phone. When she calmly explains that she’s been good today and hasn’t complained once about her homework. He just listens, eyes squeezed shut, memorizing every second, trying to remember exactly how breathing works. 

Now, though? He’s annoyed more than anything.

Mainly at the fact that people have taken one rogue lunatic’s antics as the boiling point to some greater evil.

He’s content. Happily married. His children are safe. He’s got a job he doesn’t actually hate with a passion. He’s not about to jump on the bandwagon and cry wolf.

After the second bombing, though, it’s almost like the whispers turn to hisses. Like the quiet conversations between friends over drinks become blatant fearful rants. _This is it. The end of days._

Zayn isn’t at work when it happens. He’s at the park with his family. He and Liam are nestled close on a bench beneath an old willow tree. Millie and James are off near the pond, James holding onto his sister’s hand tightly so she doesn’t get any wild ideas about swimming with the geese like she had the last time they’d come.

Liam is just kissing his cheek when they hear the scream.

It’s rough. Clearly a man’s voice. And so raw, it burrows into the base of Zayn’s spine. Liam pulls him closer almost instinctively and he shouts for James, looking about wildly for the source of the cry. 

They seem to find it at the same time just as James rushes over, slightly out of breath with a disgruntled bundle of chubby tan skin in his arms. He doesn’t let her down despite her avid protests. Just stares at his dads, waiting with nearly veiled anxiety.

The park is chaos. People rushing about frantically, shouting names over the crowds, their mouths cupped, faces creased with worry.

Off to the entrance, though, far enough that Zayn can only just make out the dark green smudge of his uniform, is a man standing with his hands on his hips, chest out. At his feet is an unmistakable body, lifeless it seems- the source of the spine-numbing scream no doubt.

Where the people had been running that way, they seemed to almost still all together upon seeing him. There’s a clear shudder through the crowd. No one’s sure what to do.

Then his voice carries over in the clear afternoon and, with an almost sickly sweet imitation, he shouts, “For all!” and Zayn shivers.

 _It’s the same_ he thinks, dragging James down by his arm to sit by him on the bench, taking Millie and pressing her against his chest, turning her head so she can’t see. _This is it._

It feels strangely calm. Where’s the fear? The regret? The terror? He only hears his heart beating so loudly it’s like it’s in his head, between his ears. And Millie’s breath at his neck. Liam’s hand on his thigh. James’ wild sandy curls in the side of his vision.

“Just there,” the man shouts, pointing off to his left, “Watch as we breed peace from war.”

Everyone it seems turns at the same time, watching the city skyline beyond the trees without a word. The scattering of buildings he’d watched constantly but never truly noticed. Until now. Until he was waiting with growing dread for something horrible to happen.

So fast, it seems nearly a second, there’s the quick chatter of birds. That’s all Zayn hears first. The frantic beating of hundreds of birds taking flight together in an instant. Then he hears James’ shaky voice, “Dad, what’s-?” and the tallest building in the distance collapses in no more than a second.

It’s like it’s been wiped from the sky by a painter’s hand, erased hastily and replaced with clear blue, the billows of distant clouds. Then there’s the chaos again.

The clamber so loud he grits his teeth as the people scurry about frantically until the man shouts again. Over the rumble of the earth shaking beneath their feet. Over the sharp cry of ambulances, police cruisers. Over the chatter of their own individual hells.

“You have known so much sorrow. This is your cleansing,” and the unmistakable ringing of a bullet follows his voice as he drops to the ground.

After the third bombing, the president addresses the nation. Zayn picks James up from school and Liam’s goes to gather Millie. They stop on the way back to get ice cream, a play at convincing her everything was fine.

She’d been better than they’d thought after what had happened. Only the slightest bit shaken. But still she’d broken down in wrecking sobs after they’d carried her to bed, only finally drifting off after Liam and Zayn had let her sleep in their room.

James, too, had been more quiet than usual. Which was saying much as he kept himself locked in his room most days, only emerging like a bear from hibernation to eat or ask to borrow money. Zayn could tell he was upset, could tell he needed someone, so he’d all but dragged him into their room too.

Like any decent teenager, he’d stuck to the semblance of it being an unavoidable torture. Though when Zayn lifted his arm for him to curl up against his side, he’d done so without a word. And when Millie had tossed a bit in her sleep, moaning, her face twisted in discomfort, he’d pressed his hand to her cheek, pulled her a little closer, held her until she was still again.

Now, though, he’s standing behind Liam, Zayn, and Millie on the couch, staring at the screen like they all are as the president walks stoically up to the podium. Across the bottom of the screen stream words in quick succession _. President Tomlinson speaks about the potential terrorist attack._ _Is the second school bombing a message to the people?_ _The White House addresses the nation’s fear. Are we safe?_

Millie mutters under her breath, trying to read the words out the best she can, but only catching a few. Beaming, though, she stares up at her dads whenever she does. When they seem to be too focused, she tries her older brother instead and he offers her a proud smile for p-r-e-s-i-d-e-n-t. Two thumbs up for c-o-n-t-r-o-l.

“The people of New York are grieving and the rest of the nation is grieving with them” the president says, face solemn, “And I ask that in this time, we remember that this is not the end. That we have risen from the worst before and we certainly will this time. This is not the work of a masked villain. This is not a terrorist scheme.”

His voice slows and he emphasizes the last words, clearly addressing the numerous claims against that very idea.

“Our strength is being tested,” he continues after a long pause.

Then the screen goes blank.

Only for a second or two. When it reappears, the president is shaking his head to someone off behind the camera, face clearly irritated.

Then it goes blank again. This time there’s static, so loud it’s stifling and Zayn nearly turns off the set, until it clears a little, showing not the president again but a dim room where a man is sitting alone behind a wide desk with his head lowered.

The walls, the floor, the desk his boots are propped up on- everything seems to be in muted shades of green and black. He’s pale, so pale, in the dark room, hair in dirty curls matted to his face, a long scar of puckered raw flesh right across his cheek and down the front of his neck, disappearing into the collar of a wrinkled military jacket.

It could have been a war movie, some Predator he’d never seen, if not for the smallest detail that has Zayn sucking in a breath. He reaches for Liam’s hand.

“James, take your sister to your room.”

There’s the usual grunt of annoyance, then Millie’s insistence that she’s more than old enough to stay. It’s not until he all but shouts that James lifts her in his arms, murmurs something about his video games to make her stay still and quiet. As if on cue, the moment he inches closer to Liam, the moment he hears the door to James’ room close, the moment he can tear his eyes away from the white FA stitched in to the man’s jacket shoulder, he speaks.

His voice isn’t what Zayn expects. It’s low, yes, but so young. Determined, but oddly without anger. He seems almost at ease.

“This is the beginning,” he says, “This is everything you wanted but were too afraid to ask for.”

There’s a pause and Liam leans into him. Presses his lips nearly to his ear.

“His sleeve,” he murmurs and Zayn only nods.

“If you want death,” he says, voice lilting in the faintest accent, one Zayn can’t quite recognize, “I will gladly give it. If you want life, though?” There’s the smallest smile on his face. It burns into Zayn’s mind. The boyish dimples, poison on his tongue, “You will have to take it for yourselves.”

The screen fades in and out then. Slowly. From static to the president’s empty press room, to the calm mutterings of a mad man. FA. It’s a chant with no meaning.

Through the chatter, laced with it, the man’s voice carries in then out then in again.

“If you need a face for your resurrection, you will have it. I am the general. I am Jesus and I am Satan.

“You will ask yourselves,” he sneers, only a voice now, completely succumbed, “have we truly been so blind? We beasts of complacency? Creatures of habit?” with so much acid dripping from his voice now, the president’s empty press room reappears. It continues though, through the connection, an eerie background hiss that sends shivers up his spine, “We self-proclaimed prophets?” and Liam’s hand grips him tighter, “We self-anointed angels of death?”

 


	2. For All Who Fell

\--  
It’s a while before Liam can bring himself to move. 

Even then, it’s like the only parts of him that are conscious, aware, are his hands, the tips of his fingers- as strange as it sounds. He goes through the motions of breathing. Turns from the set, not waiting for the president to reappear. Maybe make some excuse his speech writers have hastily scribbled out- Nothing to worry about here. We’re in control. Blue eyes pleading.

Then the moment he’s on his feet, he has the strangest thought. It’s not about the broadcast or the low pain in the pit of his gut, the fear set deep in his bones. It’s so sudden, a feeling, with Zayn’s confused stare- James’ birth.

That’s it. 

Liam remembers the hospital. A few faces and the beige walls, holding him for the first time, wiggling around in his arms. Yawning and stretching out one tiny plump hand, wrapping his entire fist around Liam’s finger.

And Zayn’s low voice, breathless at his side, “He looks like a James”. 

He’d given up on pretending to not be crying the moment the nurse had placed him in his arms. 

“So you want to?” he’d asked. They’d argued over this point for months. Their first child. Zayn wanted a traditional name. Liam insisted he be named after his grandfather.

“Yeah,” Zayn smiled, “He’s going to look like you. I can tell.”

That’s the entire moment. On his feet, it unsteadies him for less than a second

Then the most terrifying thing isn’t the broadcast, it’s the silence that follows. 

Manhattan levels to a block, an apartment. 1,000 square feet of dead air and Zayn’s hand on his thigh.

“What’s that?” he’s saying, prodding at him, “I can’t even hear it. Jesus Christ.”

When Liam turns to the television again, there’s no visual at all, only steady grey. President Tomlinson’s voice is coming through in broken chains of words, though.

“-mistake with. Here, we can… Stay.. Stay in your homes. There will-”

Liam’s cell phone screeches and he snatches it to answer.

“Mum? Mum, calm down. Yeah, we’re watching it right now. It’s- No, no t..”

The feed comes back then, and the president is standing with the vice president beside him and the secretary of state just behind.

Liam misses the entire beginning of what he says. He’s thinking, with his mother’s voice shrieking in his ear, that he can’t possibly have come up with something to say, a way to explain that madness, in the two minutes since the screen went out. Liam misses the entire beginning, but he catches the very last, as the president takes a deep steadying breath.

“Stay calm,” he says, “We’re evacuating New York City. Keep your fellow citizens in your prayers.” And the rest of the feed might as well be static again. All Liam can hear is Zayn now. And James, too maybe, but he must be imagining it. 

Zayn’s shaking his head.

Liam reaches for his arm, helps him up.

“We’re leaving,” he says.

And Zayn shakes his head.

It surprises Liam so much, he almost drops his phone. When he looks down at it, the line’s dead anyway.

“This is ridiculous,” Zayn’s saying, “We can’t just leave. I have work- the kids have school.”

“Didn’t you see that? It’s not safe here.”

Zayn “The whole damn country’s freaking out, not just New York.”

“Yeah,” he hisses, “Except all of the shit’s happened in the city, Zayn.”

He doesn’t even wait for Zayn to fire back. He just stomps down the hall and opens James’ bedroom door. James is lying on his back across his bed, tapping his palms on his chest to the beat of whatever song he’s obsessed with lately. Millie runs over to Liam and hugs his legs.

“What happened?” she asks him.

He struggles to keep a straight face, nods to James.

“Help your sister pack.”

“Pack what? What’s going on?”

“An overnight bag,” he says, Millie’s eyes on him the only thing keeping his voice calm, “Me and your dad’ll get some food.”

He gets down on one knee, puts his hands on Millie’s waist. For one blinding moment, he imagines he can feel her ribs beneath the cotton. 

“Help your brother grab your clothes and things, alright? We’re going to Grandpa’s for a while.”

In the distance there’s a loud crash. It sounds like it’s down the hall, maybe the next apartment over. But it’s almost like it lights a fuse. Suddenly, the volume’s turned up again and it steadily grows, ricocheting off their walls. It’s dragged down their street on the tail end of a fire truck bellowing. 

With a childish urgency that’s almost scary, Millie tugs on to the bottom of his shirt. 

“What about teddies?”

Liam’s thinking maybe his parents’ old place in the outskirts of the city. But one of Zayn’s closest friends lives in northern Virginia. It would be a drive. But worth it, maybe. At least there, they know there wouldn’t be any arguing. 

It takes him a second to notice that Millie’s still talking.

“You can bring one,” he tells her quickly.

“Two,” she says, and he almost rolls his eyes. Ever since her birthday, she’s been carting her Batman and Buttercup plushes all over the apartment. 

Off from the kitchen, there are a few dull clangs. Zayn knocking cans over, he guesses. Liam starts trudging through his own mental checklist. 

He’s about to just tell her no stuffed animals at all, when James reaches for her hand.

“Two teddie bears aren’t going to stuff the trunk, Liam,” he says, not even with an attitude. Just the same indifference that’s crept into his voice slowly since thirteen and- he and Zayn had argued intensely about this- that first skateboard.

Once they’re a step away, Mellie asks in an attempt at a whisper if her tea set would stuff the trunk. “It’s okay, we can shove it under your seat,” James whispers back. They’re at the door to her room when she asks if he’s bringing his fancy suit. 

Liam misses the reply.

He curtails the kitchen for now, and heads to his and Zayn’s room instead. After nearly a minute of looking for their one old battered up suitcase, he just ends up throwing slacks and a few clean t-shirts into a duffel bag. He puts their washing-up things in ziplocks and wraps their chargers up with Zayn’s laptop into a pair of his old pajama bottoms.

He passes over the framed photographs and his golf clubs, holds onto the car keys and drops them by Zayn’s wallet on the kitchen table once he’s done setting the other things near the front door. He breathes a little easier when he sees Millie’s Dora bag there as well. There’s a pulsing bass coming from James’ room and Liam mentally crosses his fingers that the kid’s packing and not moseying around.

The kitchen looks like a nuke’s been dropped.

“Zayn?” he says, staring at the wreckage of dishes and silverware, boxes of cereal and mountains of cans.

“What?” Zayn snaps at him, “We’re leaving, right? I’m getting ready.”

Too much time, he’s thinking. If they don’t leave soon, they’ll be stuck in the traffic with everyone else trying to leave. It’ll take hours.

“Let’s just get food on the way.. Once we’re out of the city. What if we lose the can opener?” he jokes, staring at the To Take pile that’s mainly Chef Boyardee- Millie would surely be happy, “We’ll starve.”

“We can use James’ pocket knife,” Zayn says simply, without even glancing up.

Liam looks back at him. “Why does James have a pocket knife?”

Another can makes its way to the To Take pile, and Liam carefully puts it back on the shelf. Zayn rolls his eyes, “It’s not an M-16,” Liam, “Didn’t you have a swiss when you were seventeen?”

“No.”

It’s a bit harsher than he intends for it to be. 

Zayn stops packing to touch his shoulder, “Okay, babe, I’m sorry I didn’t tell you, alright,” he waves a hand across their makeshift pile of provisions, “but more important things to worry about?”

From their apartment door to the street is a quiet journey, lugging their things along. Millie’s humming to herself. Even from there to their car is fine. There are people like them all along the block loading their cars up. A lot of people are walking. There’s a sort of calm over it all. Considering.

Liam’s adjusting Millie’s car seat so Zayn gets behind the wheel.

“Your parents’ place?” he asks. Liam nods.

A couple from across the street shouts to them if they’re going far. Zayn shouts back, “Not really, you?”

“Just across the state line. They’re all probably overreacting anyway.”

Zayn laughs. Like they’re in on some joke together. The other couple laughs back. Liam wants to scream. This is a big deal, he wants to say. He just turns to Zayn and mouths, “People are dead”. 

Zayn starts the engine, mouths back, “People die everyday”.

It’s.. calm like that for a while. It’s when they make it four blocks that the mood shifts. They come to a red light and instantly hear sirens blaring from god knows where. Zayn starts to shift over to his right and the car behind them lays on their horn. 

He almost swerves right anyway, but the sound of screeching tires steadies his hand. It creeps up from the end of the street behind them, along with a booming voice shrieking something Zayn can’t quite make out. Down the right lane soars a pickup truck going at least ninety miles an hour. A trail of four policemen follow it, all with their sirens roaring. The voice keeps going until they’re out of sight. 

Liam can hear Millie asking James quietly what the man was saying.

James mumbles back, “Nothing, don’t worry about it,” but Liam had heard it. Over the sirens. He probably would have heard it over a hurricane. Save yourselves. And something about a resistance. Nonsense really.

He thanks whatever nameless god there is up there that they don’t see anything crazy on their way out of the city. They’re nearly at the border of New York when the traffic starts to build so much that Zayn’s not even touching the gas pedal.

They’re bumper to bumper, Zayn’s fingers tapping the wheel, and Millie’s humming again. Liam turns the radio on. Just long enough to hear a calm man explain that this whole business is surely aliens, yes, I said aliens, David and Liam turns the radio back off.

He tries his mother’s cell, but she doesn’t answer. He tries the house, then his dad’s cell and nothing goes through.

It starts to rain just when the traffic has them nearly at a standstill. The mobs of people walking between the lanes and on the side of the road are moving faster than they are. Some are just standing still, though, without anything but the clothes on their backs. Liam tries to ignore them. Tries to focus on what he can, getting his family out and safe. 

The only thing that pierces through the haze he’s muddling in, and the monotony of the traffic and drizzle, is Millie’s death cry.

“Baba! Baba, stop!”

He floors the breaks so hard Liam’s head whips forward and he throws his arms up at the dash. 

Immediately the car behind starts to honk their horn, as if the ten mile an hour traffic is so stunted by their stagnancy. 

“Baby, what’s wrong?” Liam turns to her, fully braced for blood. 

She’s looking out of her window, gesturing madly at a group of soaking wet men standing off the partition. Half look like they’ve been uprooted from a nuclear apocalypse in a third world country. The others are cradling briefcases and coats, bookish and somber.

“Can he come, too?” Millie sighs, pressing her open hand to the window. Liam almost says no immediately. He’s not going to let a group of random men just climb on in because it’s cold. But Millie’s pointing and he realizes one of the men does look familiar. After a second glance, he nudges Zayn and points to the corner of the group.

“With the orange sweater,” he tells him, “Millie’s teacher, right?”

“He can come?” she asks again.

Liam shakes his head. 

He’s thinking that they don’t know him at all. That they’ve gone to a grand sum of two parent-teacher conferences and Millie’s teacher had always seemed sort of distant and.. strange. Never one Liam felt very comfortable around. Hardly enough to have him hitching a ride.

Zayn just stares at him, “Why not?”

“He’s.. creepy,” he says back, hating the word as soon as it leaves his mouth. “Do we even know this guy?” he tries again.

Zayn just rolls down Liam’s window. It takes about a minute of gesturing to get the man to trudge over. Even then, he looks in and greets Millie before anyone else. For James, he only nods. For Liam and Zayn, he does something more like an all-over cringe.

“Mr. Horan? Are you.. alright?” Zayn asks, trying to ignore the raising voices of the cars behind them. 

Millie’s shrugs, “As good as I can be, I suppose.”

James sits up just enough to peek his head right into their conversation, “You should come with us.”

Millie’s happily nodding her assent.

Even with rain dripping down his face, he manages to rather demurely turn them down.

“No- thank you. Kind, but I’m fine.”

“We’re going to our grandparents just outside the city until it calms down. Might as well,” James says, “Better than standing out here in the rain.” 

After an angry, expletive-laced slur makes its way up from someone behind them in line, Zayn groans.

“Okay, you’ve got three seconds to get in the damn car.” Then Liam, James, and Millie all chime in at once.

-“We don’t even know him.”

-“Liam, switch the child lock off.”

-“Baba, bad word!”

The cars behind them have taken up a steady horn blare by now. Zayn puts it in drive. Barely three miles an hour- a paraplegic could keep up. For all of his hesitation, Mr. Horan follows the car.

“Millie, dear. I wouldn’t want to impose,” he starts. An irritated German voice fairly close has Zayn pushing the pedal down a little more.

“Well, you’re imposing right now so..”

While Millie calmly explains why she wants him to come along, James is opening his door on the other side.

After a bit of adjusting, they’re on their way again. Now with Mr. Horan wedged between James and Millie- who’s cheerfully chattering on in her car seat.

Just to tune out the Sesame Street talk, Zayn brings up the first thing that comes to mind- the broadcast.

Mr. Horan rather tritely explains that he didn’t see it, but had in fact been at school grading papers when he got a panicked call from another teacher. “We’d decided to meet outside at the school and discuss what to do. We somehow ended up here,” he says, “And you can call me Niall, if you don’t mind.”

Millie giggles, “Niall?” and claps her plump little hands over her mouth.

“It was awful,” Liam says, “You’re lucky you didn’t see it.”

“And lucky we spotted you there, too,” James says.

Zayn shakes his head, “Whatever. The whole city’s gone to shit. All because of some psychopath in a camo jacket. It’s just.. I don’t know.. I wish I knew why.”

Liam says, “Me too."

Niall takes his glasses off and gently cleans them on the edge of his shirt.

“I-have a few theories,” he says, as Zayn eases on the brake. Ahead about twenty or so cars up in the right lane, there’s an ambulance. No sirens, but it seems even the looming threat of the world coming to an end won’t stop people from ogling a potential car accident.

“He’s either a natural terrorist, or a heretic. I’d-wager on the former, but regardless I’m sure his broadcast was rather upsetting. I was surprised the president didn’t have a more efficient response. Besides, the running notion seems to be that this terrorist man is going to take control anyway. He won’t want too many massacres then, right? What’s the point of rising to power if there’s no flock to order around?”

A heavy silence settles over the car as they all listen to his voice trail off. He’s thinking out loud. Liam knows what that’s like. Only, with kids you learn to filter.. 

“Christ, man,” Zayn whistles, along the same strain, “And you teach kindergarten?”

Liam’s staring back at Niall, eyes slowly glazing over. Millie is fiddling with the man’s keychain. Of all of them, James is the only one who seems to be making sense of any of it. He’s wearing the intent look he only slips into when he’s about to try and explain a bad report card or why he needs an hour added onto his curfew.

“Natural?” he says, “Natural like born here?” twisting his cap off to drag his fingers through his lanky gold bangs. He pushes them off of his forehead, flips the brim to the back.

“I would assume so,” Niall says, “judging by his- passion. And the locations he’s chosen so far. He’s been here before, or he’s from here. Either way, he’s holding a bit of a grudge.”  
Liam hisses, “Passion?”, but Zayn must be the only one who hears. 

James’ cell phone roars a deafening drum solo. He quickly silences it.

“My friend said he had an accent, though. What about that?”

Niall smiles and it reminds Zayn of every art teacher he ever had while he was in school. How they’d look at him like he’d just done something miraculous, dragging that color through the edge a certain way, finding a tainted shade of green in burgundy, or purple in yellow.

“I’m from Ireland,” Niall says, “Born and raised. But I’m as American as anyone. Accent’s never a strong basis.”

The traffic starts to pick up pace and Zayn’s coasting just past forty miles an hour when he sees the trail of police cruisers up ahead. They hug the partition in the HOV lane. James is antsy, tapping his fingers on the door handle, “We’re not stopping again, are we?” A few of the doors are open, and dozens of officers are standing off to the side of their cars. Some are talking, pointing to the city with their hands perched almost protectively on their holsters, some are whispering. One woman is standing on the roof of her car with a megaphone in one hand and a binder in the other. Her voice pounds down sticky over the rain.

“Please, we advise that you stay in your cars.”

James grunts, “Where do they think we’re going to go?”

“The officers will be checking your vehicles. To make the process faster,” Her voice could wake the dead, Liam thinks, reaches for Zayn’s arm, “if you are in a car alone please hold your left hand out of your window to signal this to us. If you are in a car with multiple passengers, we’ll need a minute or two of your time.. we’re doing our best, we promise. We’ll get you out of here as quickly as we can.”

There’s a low, harsh drum of static before the truck in front of theirs inches forward a little. Just ahead, they can all make out an officer walking around a car in line slowly. He checks the backseat with his flashlight poised and then the trunk. That car goes forward and he checks the next one the same way. Front seat, back seat, trunk, and they move on. 

James is motionless in his seat, not even craning to see what’s happening like the others are.

He’s watching the window, yes, but also beside him where Mr. Horan is tucking his suitcase under Mellie’s blanket near his feet. He removes his glasses and slips them underneath his thigh, rolls his sleeves up and undoes a button on his shirt all in the same cool, calm manner. He’s just tussling his hair, wrecking up the damp slick-back, when a flashlight beam shines in on Zayn’s face.

The officer gives a little smile before leaning in and asking Zayn to do a headcount.

“Five,” he says, almost forgetting Mr. Horan for a second.

The cop nods and looks in, a brief glance at each of them. Millie waves back cheerfully from her carseat.

The officer spares a second look for Niall. Then a long pause. 

Her face is a blank slate when she aims the flash light right at his eyes.

“What’s your name?” she says.

He clears his throat and says, “Logan” in a perfectly practiced American accent.

When she hears it, the officer’s tense stance changes. She gives him a long last look, but backs up to walk around the car. Zayn pops the trunk for her and a moment later they’re on the road

Also, a moment later, they’re all also staring back at Niall like he’s grown a third head.

Zayn and Liam nearly say it in unison. “What was that?” 

Or well, Liam sort of shrieks it really.

Back to Irish, Niall quickly says, “Do you really want to stay here any longer than necessary? It would be awfully suspicious of I got out now.”

As if to second that, an officer casually waves them ahead with his pistol.

Liam turns to the back seat, just as Zayn’s foot touches the gas.

“Okay, you start talking as soon as we cross the border.”

“Or you hop out,” Zayn adds.

The border comes rather quickly after they pass the police barrier. Zayn gives it a minute or two before he turns off to the shoulder.

“Talk,” he says, twisting in his seat to watch him. Liam does the same.

Niall shakes his head, “Look, it’s not something I can explain easily-”

“Try.”

“Of course. I mean, it’s a difficult subject for me.”

Liam resists the urge to clench his hands into fists.

“Give us the short version then,” he snaps, wondering who this man is, sitting calmly between his children. 

Niall nods, “Fine. It didn’t seem right to stop you guys from leaving on my account.”

Zayn shakes his head, speaks in clipped, low sentences like he only ever does when he’s seconds away from raising his voice.

“Stop us? What do you mean stop us?”

Niall holds his hands out, “Well, I missed the broadcast, but I had heard the gist. And the word terrorist thrown around more times than I could count. I thought it was only safe to assume the police were looking for.. a certain type of person.”

It takes a moment for that to sink in. Liam just drops his eyes from Niall’s sloppy blond hair to his muddled khakis.

“A terrorist?” he asks, “In oxfords and glasses?”

Niall shrugs, “Didn’t want to take any chances.”

“So you dropped the accent and made up a fake name on the spot just like that?”

He just blinks, “Not the first time I’ve had to fake an American accent. I went to college here. It.. came in handy when I wanted to avoid someone who thought they remembered me from some place. The name just came to me,” he says, “Not sure why.” 

Liam doesn’t know what to do with that. He turns to Zayn and they just look at each other for a moment. 

Ten minutes later they’re driving back down the road with Niall still settled into the backseat. Liam’s staring straight ahead. He hates how awful he feels about it, but still there’s the gut feeling that Niall’s story is bullshit. But Zayn’s seems okay with it at least. Liam looks over to him, tries to gauge how he’s feeling, but all he can go on in how tight his hands are gripping the wheel.

Just to kill the silence, just to think about something other than where they’re headed and why, Liam asks Niall what school he went to.

“Georgetown,” he says.

“Wow, really? How’d you end up teaching Elementary school?”

It takes him so long to respond, Liam turns to look at him. 

Niall’s staring down at his hands, threading his hands together like he’s about to pray. “I always wanted to work with children,” he says, with a soft voice, Mellie’s head resting on his shoulder, “They’re so much- simpler. I suppose ‘malleable’ may be the word I’m looking for. Delicate. Wonderful… Uncorrupted.”

\--

It’s a half hour before they’re in Scragston where Liam’s parents’ summer home is. The town is hardly lively aside from tourist seasons, but now as they drive through it’s more than eerily deserted. It’s almost like they’re the last people left on earth.

The main roads are empty, and the only cars they see are when they start down neighborhood streets. Even then, though, they’re all parked and there isn’t a soul in sight. 

Zayn calls his parents while they all take their things inside. His mother answers on the first ring. They were in Florida when they had news of the evacuation. His youngest sister hadn’t answered her phone, but he didn’t seem all that worried. Her family was in Virginia after all, and all of the chaos seemed centered around New York. Just Manhattan actually, but Zayn refuses to think on that for too long.

Once all of their things are inside, Liam feels like he has to do something, just for his own sanity. He does a headcount for who’s hungry. Everyone’s hand goes up so he gets a pot going with four whole cans of chef Boyardee.

They sit on the living room floor eating it. No one’s talking much. They try the television, but there’s only static. 

“Radio?” Zayn asks.

James gives them all a longsuffering look, “No one has radios anymore.”

He digs through his bag and lifts out his laptop.

In a minute or two, he’s pulling up a rather sordid looking website. The banner across the top’s nothing but the thick white outline of a body, splayed out and missing both legs from the knee down.

Liam looks over his shoulder, “We’re getting the news from a blog?”

James sighs, “It’s all political, Liam, okay? You want to hear it from the guys whose salaries are getting fluffed to sugarcoat it, or do you want the real deal? They’re doing something no one else is doing. You have to give them credit for that at least, even if you don’t understand it.”

It’s the same voice he always defaults to with Liam. Zayn comes over and looks on with them.

“What are they saying then?” he asks. Trying to help, Liam knows, but James just looks up at him with a little smile.

“It’s the coolest, dad,” he says, “It’s run by all of these college kids, here, look. This one, here?”

\--

“Mr. President? Mr. President, Senator Barnes on line four.”

Louis thanks her, takes a moment to steady his breathing. To try and steady his breathing.

He’s had immense practice. For months now, they’ve been receiving almost steady correspondence about terror threats from men calling themselves the ‘FA’. And honestly, the threats were nothing more than unimpressive wallop from loud-mouthed foreigners. The only reason they even made it to the president’s desk was because of the deliberate, almost chilling simplicity of one list, hand written in blue ink by someone with an unsteady grip.

It came to him in the second year of his third term, the beginning of February 2167. There were nearly thirty names, all with dots beside them. A few with dots and x’s. 

They’d been checked and rechecked by his staff and the secret service and every other government organization with an updated database, and the unanimous response seemed to be nothing more than shrugging their shoulders. The names belonged to people with no connections, a random jigsaw of military officers, firemen, retired book store owners, school teachers, stay-at-home mothers, mechanical engineers. One woman had been dead for years. 

He can remember the vice president laughing over his shoulder, the spice of her cologne like cinnamon and dark wine, “The nerve of these people. I wouldn’t believe it if I didn’t see it with my own eyes.”

At the bottom of the page were instructions to “hand over” the listed people in a year’s time or there would be consequences. “Be with us,” the neat script read like a poorly written action film, the villain sat up late at night drawing out his terms, “This is a cleansing”.

Nothing was done.

Or, decidedly nothing at least. The public wasn’t told. The list was copied and pasted and forwarded to the higher ups of committees, but none of the people on it were ever informed. 

Then a man shouting ‘For all who fell’ had taken out two dozen parents and school children, and two of the people on the list lost a daughter and son. Within hours another letter was dropped on his desk. This time with a simple warning, a reminder that the people were to be handed over. To whom, it wasn’t stated. The only mark was near the bottom where someone had stamped FA into the corner, a black smudge with starchy white block letters. 

His cabinet was scrambling around for answers, but no progress had been made. By the time the building fell, all they’d done was settle on the word, “terrorist”. No one from the first list was identified as deceased, but one man from the list lost a daughter and wife. Another had an aunt who worked on the fourth floor. This time there was no letter, but a thick chunky VHS. It had taken hours to find a museum that owned VCRs and even then, longer to find working ones. Eventually, Louis was sat around with his cabinet and a few choice members of Congress, watching the video and holding their breath.

He was young, this terrorist. So young it was almost jarring. And ghostly pale with shadows under his eyes.

He didn’t give a name, but he said he lead a revolution. They called themselves the FA. “For all who fell”. He’d said it proudly then, leaning back against a stack of concrete slabs, all labeled in a language Louis vaguely recognized. 

The man had called himself a savior over and over again. In the course of the barely four minute video, he’d made it clear that he wasn’t trying to destroy the world.

The vice president snorted at that, “Funny way of showing it”. There were a few nods, a nervous chuckle or two. The recorders in the corner scrambled to catch every word on their notepads- no cameras were allowed in the viewing room.

The man’s posture was relaxed. Even his tone suggested a casual meeting between two strangers. His point was clear, though. He wanted the people on the list. He didn’t say why. If they weren’t handed over, more people would die. 

Louis had thought then, foolishly, that this was the worst. That if he made it through the briefings after the first building’s collapse, after the second, that it would somehow be alright. He’d been fed it by the people surrounding him constantly. There was a steady stream of stern, “We can’t give him what he wants.” “We don’t negotiate with terrorists.” “These are innocent people’s lives, sir.” But the body count was like a slap in the face.

And this evening is anxiety Louis never knew he could feel. Something almost all-consuming.

“Thank you, Jen,” he makes himself say, biting out the words. She scurries quickly out of his office after that, and he doesn’t blame her. The noise alone could wake the dead- every noteworthy mind in the country is either wedged into the meager standing room, or blaring facts out monotone from phones set to speaker like sports announcers. Just the bulk of it is enough to have him sucking in angry words, but on top of it all, he’s almost ignored. The youngest man in the room. And there’s something to be said for having no military experience, as well, he’s been told at least five times since the failed broadcast four minutes ago. The title ‘president’ is a door mat now it would seem. He’s addressed sporadically to sign for something to be authorized. Once again when he’s told that they’ve traced the mysterious man to somewhere on the eastern seaboard. 

When Louis had asked how much closer that brought them to figuring out if they could wager with him, talk with him, he’d been promptly ignored again.

No, he doesn’t blame Jen for rushing out. He’d do the same if he could.

After an hour, he finally has the floor again.

They all turn to him and he says what he’s been meaning to say for days now.

“We need to get to the people on his list.” His. Whoever the man is. 

“But how?” a nervous voice chimes in, “Maybe on a regular day, in a regular time, we could. But we’ve been evacuating New York for nearly two hours now and half of the people on the list live or work there. Not to mention Chicago and Virginia Beach. This could take weeks.”

“We’ll do what we can then,” Louis tells her, then looks around, addressing the room. “There must be patrol on the major outlet routes, of course. Can we ask the police there to check cars as they leave?”

A woman steps forward, “But we obviously don’t want to cause panic.”

“We’re only looking for a handful of people,” the vice president cuts in, “We won’t be dragging everyone from their cars.”

The Secretary of State steps forward, “We’ll give the police what they need to know to look for.”

“List of names,” Louis says, “and photographs, too. A little bit of information about them. We give the police the ones they need to know for whatever city they’re evacuating.”

The vice president grabs the woman’s arm next to her and whispers something about the national guard to her and Louis has to breath a sigh of relief to himself, thankful he appointed her despite the adamant protests from some of his closest cabinet members.

One man nods, “What do we tell the police, though? Certainly not that they’re apprehending hostages for a madman.”

At the word hostages, there’s a visible hush in the room. 

This is what Louis lives for, though. He can be President here, when everyone else is silent and waiting to be led.

“This is a disaster situation,” he says, “Everything from here on out is need-to-know. Tell the police that the people they are looking for are dangerous- better to be safe here, since we don’t quite know their relationship to the terrorist group just yet.”

Down the list they go, checking which city each person is meant to be in. Faxes and emails are sent, with the lofty Presidential seal tacked to the bottom.

Louis’ just easing down into his desk chair, ready to lay his head in his hands and forget the last twenty-four hours, when a burly man taps twice on his door frame.

“Mr. President?” he says, “The equipment’s all set up outside for your next press conference.”

Press, of course, being a handful of his cabinet members and one or two trailing behind media junkies. People who were too tied up or too stupid to leave the capitol when Louis made the order to evacuate.

He takes a deep breath. “I’m on then, I guess.”


End file.
